How Your Wine Glass Changes The Taste Of Your Wine

Thankfully, for most of us, the days of drinking wine out of a mug (cringe) are long gone. But, we feel the responsibility to tell you something: Even if you've upgraded to drinking your vino out of fancy wine glasses, you may be doing it all wrong (😱🍷).

That's because the shape of the glass has a particular effect on how your wine tastes, and you don't have to be a pro sommelier who talks about nutty flavors/cocoa hints/mineral finishes to notice it. But you do have to know a thing or two about wine.

Enter Richard Vayda, the director of wine studies at the Institute of Culinary Education in New York City, who helped us compile a nifty infographic to help you with all your wine shape woes (and, naturally, to show off your vino knowledge at that dinner party this weekend).

"With wine and wine glasses, there are multiple factors that come into play," says Vayda. "First, there's the wine itself and how it reacts to the glass. Then there's the temperature of the wine, and also the glass shape and size, which will affect the taste."

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Feel intimidated? Don't. There are six basic wine glasses you need to know, and you've probably already sipped out of each.

Red wines with plenty of tannins are typically served in a large glass, which allows for oxidation. White wines? You don't want those to oxidize as much.

"All wines are going to oxidize, or what some people call breathing," says Vayda. "A red wine glass has larger surface area to proportion of wine in the glass, so that means there's going to be more exchange of gas per volume of wine in the glass."

So, err, what does that mean for your taste buds?

"We want red wines, especially bigger red wines that have a lot of tannins, to take on a little bit of air so they round out and relax a little bit," says Vayda. "Meanwhile, we want white wines to maintain their bright freshness, so we put them in glasses that don't allow for as much oxidation."

Diya Liu

This explains so much.

Furthermore, curved-out rims help the wine fall on the tip of your tongue first, and are therefore better for tasting light, fruity wines. Meanwhile, curved-in rims help the wine fall to the back of the tongue, and are better for full-bodied tannic wines, says Vayda.

Diya Liu

For the entire Wine Glass 101, check out the infographic below. Save it for future reference. Take it to the glassware store. Pass it on to that one friend who once put red wine in a flute.

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